I am aware of the Encyclopedie.
The slave owning south wanted it both ways. Southerners certainly didn’t want the slaves to have the right to vote even potentially, but they wanted them counted as population for purposes of states’ representation in Congress. Presumably we all know and agree about that. The 3/5 compromise was just that, a compromise, an expedient, a bargain. No compromise, no Constitution. The anti-slavery people got the best of the bargain in that they got the Constitution plus the importation cut-off. The South got considerably more representation than it should have been entitled to. Everybody kicked the can down the road.
Slave owners I would say all intellectually knew Negroes were obviously human. Emotionally, some of them anyhow may have been able part or most of the time to feel they were subhuman. People in the north mostly believed they were inferior in a variety of ways, but both intellectually and emotionally considered them unequivocally human. But the compromise is not about any of that. It is another question altogether. None of the delegates ever claimed or thought slaves were 3/5 human. There is no justification in the 3/5 compromise for liberal breast beating, trumpeting of moral superiority, and flagellation of the Founding Fathers or the entire white race. But that is exactly what the primary message is every time liberals mention the compromise. I can see liberals in their less intellectually rigorous moments feeling morally superior over this, but expressing it is a factual and logical error. Making it a dominant theme in serious or popular history is a crass, outrageous, blatant, and contemptibly dishonest political act.

The statement that was being refuted was that “the founding fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery”. I consider the founding fathers to be those who were alive and participated in the forming of the government. So, we agree, they kicked the can down the road, right? Politics is always about compromise, so I think we also agree that you can’t judge the personal thoughts or feelings of an individual based on the agreements they made with their opposition. So, if we agree on who the “founding fathers” are, and what “ending slavery” is, I think the disagreement is on the meaning of “worked tirelessly”. I would need some history of actions taken say between 1780 and 1820 or so to demonstrate that.

I might also note that you have picked one of the more difficult of the examples given on the show. One that would require knowing the thoughts of those involved. Others, such as saying that the creationism debate was settled in 1776 are bordering on the ridiculous.

rg21:
I can see liberals in their less intellectually rigorous moments feeling morally superior over this, but expressing it is a factual and logical error.

Why do you imagine these things? I look at history as what a people has done. I don’t feel morally superior to anyone. That does no good. But I will fight against ideas that try to place one group of people above or below another. Abolitionist’s ideas were about fairness. Those ideas were often led by Evangelical Protestants and they are my heroes in those instances. There were many in the North and the South who did not believe in abolitionist ideas - primarily because they saw it as disruptive to the economy. I will also fight against one group demanding that everyone else follow their moral code - like same sex marriage, and abortion. Those are individual choices and individuals should have the right to choose such things for themselves. I don’t feel superior because I hold these beliefs but I do believe these beliefs to be superior; that’s why I choose them.

I don’t feel superior because I hold these beliefs but I do believe these beliefs to be superior; that’s why I choose them.

Well said traveller. After hearing Shermer’s interview, I looked into Prospect Theory, something he talked about in the context of rational thinking. It is an irony of science that the very rational method that it has refined over the past few hundred years has led to the discovery that by nature we are not rational thinkers. Some of the enlightenment thinkers actually did write that there were rational people and irrational people and the irrational ones were made for manual labor and could never better themselves. That stuff tends to stick around for a few generations. They didn’t have the advantage we now have of really putting the idea of equality to the test. Many people have since proved that circumstances of birth can be overcome. I don’t agree with what they said about irrational people, but they are the same people who created the structure that allowed for them to be shown wrong, and I do agree with them for doing that. Labeling them as “liberal” or “enlightened” or “better than” really doesn’t amount to much.

Putting it the way you put it is so obvious, but still can be difficult to keep in mind in the heat of a discussion. It is like when someone says “you always think you are so right”. Well of course I do. If I thought I was wrong but did or said it anyway, then I would be a psychopath.

rg21 should at least dispense with using the term ‘liberalism’ to describe Western leftist ideologies… However widely used in the United States as a blanket synonym for leftist views, in general, it’s a really, really bad term for that purpose, probably most of all because that’s not at all what the word really means.

When someone tells me that “liberalism is the death wish of Western Civilization’ I assume they must be arguing for more traditional conservative institutional authority dictating social organization and policy, i.e. The Church, a hereditary plutocracy or aristocracy, some kind of institutional ‘meritocracy’ like ‘experts’ or mandarins….as oppose to the Liberal insistence on maximal individual freedom and autonomy.

This might be enough in itself to discourage rg21’s continuing use of the term…unless I’m correct, and rg21 really does pine for some modern version of Christian Socialism…..

I see numerous examples of leftist revisionism (actually I think the left sort of invented the idea….) and it has seemed predominant in academia until recently…ideas such a the moral and political equivalence of oh, say classical Athens and Persian theocratic palace economies of the same period, or Spanish conquistadors horrible repression of the valiant Aztec’s noble ripping our of POWs hearts to terrorize their subject populations….not to mention the horrible crimes of any culture in history that was successful deserving reparations to the failed ones, success being, naturally, evidence of oppression and expropriation, prima facie, unless, of course, awarded by academia to the ‘right crowd’, in which case that could be entirely ignored.

You feel the righteous anger of the wronged, rg21, railing at their offenders, and yet have no clue as the source of that inchoate rage…. My conclusion is that the experiment in Western Enlightenment Liberalism may be more doomed by its own myopia than by any of the several, very real, external threats to its dominance.

The Scientific Method, Rationalism, Reason, .... these are still an experiment. The jury’s still very much out, and at this juncture, I’d say the odds at least don’t look all that good.

It’s a good thing liberals don’t believe in God. Even as it is, they have themselves hopelessly confused with Him. Liberalism makes politics serve the functions of religion with most of the worst and few of the best features of both.
Actually, conservatism is a more natural match with skepticism and the scientific outlook by far than liberalism. The capitalist economic system is an empirical, trial and error, survival of the fittest system with all kinds of opportunities for interplay and hybridization of ideas at all levels (technological, business, legal). The American republic is an ad hoc and compromise arrangement with provision to experiment AND REJECT new ideas at the local and state level.
Liberalism is faith and ideology, often with tragic, insane, barbaric, or loathsome results. (Communism, carbon dioxide defined as a regulatable pollutant, women in combat, and homosexual legitimization are respective examples.) “We can’t turn back the clock,” is an all too common liberal rallying cry – meaning we can’t correct our mistakes. That should raise a red flag – poor choice of metaphors . What was that about self-correcting?
Marxism. All the lies, back stabbing, betrayal, and corruption liberals, American academic liberals (just to concentrate on one of the most petty aspects of the tragedy) practiced and still practice for that dream! Liberals have never mustered the class or the character to apologize, or even to be embarrassed, let alone ashamed, of their role in the once great revolution and instrument of death, terror and grinding poverty.
Just to mention one elephant in the living room. Liberals fiercely oppose research (never mind the findings they don’t like) that might challenge convenient dogmas about sex (“gender” in newspeak. I never thought I would live to see the day a liberal didn’t want to say “sex.”) roles and characteristics, and God forbid (pardon my language) anything at all about biology or heredity as applied to homosexuality. We aren’t supposed to ask and we aren’t supposed to know, just believe. Creationists and 17th century popes have nothing on libs. They condone suppression of excavation and examination of early American skeletal remains because of “sensitivity” to the religious – RELIGIOUS – beliefs of Indians (“native Americans” in newspeak. I was born in this country and that is all it takes to make me native American too. Damn any mealy mouthed liberal who says no.)
By the way, can some liberal give me the scientific reason why in 1939, 40, and 41 when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had a nonagression pact in effect, Hitler was acceptable to liberals but the instant he attacked the Soviet Union he was then and ever after, supreme, archetypal evil? I’ve just always been curious.
Anyhow, obviously I could go on, but liberalism is pathological conceit. All liberal ideas are superior to everything ever thought or done in all ages before, be they phrased or structured as religion, custom, law, whatever, and liberals have a moral obligation to shove their ideas down the throats of the rest of us contemptible idiots and fools. Society weeds out the new ideas or adjusts to them with more innovations which in turn have unforeseen consequences that need accommodation. Beyond a certain rate of introduction, these processes cannot keep up and society becomes more and more dysfunctional, self contradictory, unjust, inefficient, unsatisfying, evil, stupid, and corrupt. If you live in the best civilization in history, you better have a damned good reason before you tamper with it. The conceit of liberals is not among those damned good reasons.

...you seem to be a bit of a sophist. I actually spoke w/ one this weekend—he went ranting on about ObamaCare and all of that and he used ad hominem just as you are. It seems sophism is incomplete w/out ad hominem. This person I spoke to usually won arguments w/ ‘libs’ and was accustomed to yelling folks down, I was told later. The moment I mentioned sophist, well we were all ‘friends’ after that.
“...liberalism is pathological conceit”, what? Personally, I think that you are outright lying and you know it. And we don’t ‘live in the best civilization in history’, that is ridiculous not even if one considers that the planet is melting because of it. I see you trying to pose liberalism and neo-liberalism as two sides of the same coin or it’s ‘just a matter of opinion’ but that is a lie. Although you may not call your stance neo-liberal it is just that.
“...society becomes more and more dysfunctional, self contradictory, unjust, inefficient, unsatisfying, evil, stupid, and corrupt”, what, WTF! I think you guys are serious about your plunder but it is all groundless…the planet is being destroyed for nothing, nothing at all and your speech is out to exacerbate the problem, thanks dude!

Most of what I say you don’t understand, really?
” Liberalism is faith and ideology, often with tragic, insane, barbaric, or loathsome results. (Communism, carbon dioxide defined as a regulatable pollutant, women in combat, and homosexual legitimization are respective examples.)” And ‘Liberal history…”, great use of BS, bro! Your sophistry would be magical if it weren’t so useless; but it is fictional and yet divisive. Almost of this BS banking system and you come up w/ this stuff, let me ask you—why not volunteer for the military if you haven’t already. I think you’d be good for the job. I got to tell you though—no matter how you slice that argument of yours to appear plausible it shall never be.
You preach yet you don’t ascribe to anything that would resemble a recognition of a free flow of information, you can’t. Example, “liberal history’, that has no real meaning but you said it, why?

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We have one choice, either we are going to die on a living planet or we are going to try to live on a dead one.

@ng21
I got a joke for you, how many tax dollars does it take to convince a U.S. citizen to turn their back on reality?...I don’t know either but I’m sure the sky is the limit! LOL How’s that?
I know what you’re saying is meaningless, no merit what so ever. Some of your speech is outright lying but that’s your point. LOL And to top it off, your speech is only going to make matters worse. WOW. But when you see this post try to respond to the issue of NetNeutrality and what you see in the near future concerning our ability to retrieve info from many parts of the world where ‘civility’ and ‘society’ is sub-par or where ‘liberal history’ might exist. Or look into U.S. tax $$$ being used to support paramilitaries that rape and kill indigenous peoples(i.e. Colombia for example) who stand up for their land and water rights or where the Peruvian gov. stopped a mine project after protesters were shot and killed, what of this? And yet you speak of ‘liberal history’. What you’re saying can’t make any sense, it CAN’T—and you get an ‘F’ for even putting your mind to it…attempting to convince others to ‘stick head up between cheek’! LOL
And of course, I wish you bad luck in your quest to damage as much of this world as possible.
Plunder is groundless.

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We have one choice, either we are going to die on a living planet or we are going to try to live on a dead one.

This seems like the appropriate thread to ask you what your screen name means. I mean I think I understand it, but I don’t really understand neolib (but I do understand neocon, as in religious right). Could ya help a fella out???

If you don’t like the name “liberal,’ you shouldn’t be talking to me. When I came on the scene and ever since, the liberals themselves have arrogated the right to decide what they and everybody and everything else is called. Marxists, Alinskyite, New Left. In the 60’s the radicals were distinguished from the liberals who followed the radicals’ lead. For obvious reasons, the radicals preferred to be called liberals. Now they call the tune for the whole orchestra. They are all liberals now but they are all radicals now. That name was hardly the first word the left has expropriated or prostituted for its own reasons. Now that the smell has become so rank, they prefer to be called progressives. What kind of arrogant ass is so conceited that he can ask we lesser others to call him progressive? I’m aware of the archaic other meaning of liberal, but today when I talk about liberals, I usually end up sticking my finger in the intended eye.
Probably I should be glad see liberals are human enough to act just like creationists or any other true believer. When they encounter dissenting ideas they never thought before, they turn personal and nasty and declare victory over and over in a loud voice.

If you don’t like the name “liberal,’ you shouldn’t be talking to me. When I came on the scene and ever since, the liberals themselves have arrogated the right to decide what they and everybody and everything else is called. Marxists, Alinskyite, New Left. In the 60’s the radicals were distinguished from the liberals who followed the radicals’ lead. For obvious reasons, the radicals preferred to be called liberals. Now they call the tune for the whole orchestra. They are all liberals now but they are all radicals now. That name was hardly the first word the left has expropriated or prostituted for its own reasons. Now that the smell has become so rank, they prefer to be called progressives. What kind of arrogant ass is so conceited that he can ask we lesser others to call him progressive? I’m aware of the archaic other meaning of liberal, but today when I talk about liberals, I usually end up sticking my finger in the intended eye.
Probably I should be glad see liberals are human enough to act just like creationists or any other true believer. When they encounter dissenting ideas they never thought before, they turn personal and nasty and declare victory over and over in a loud voice.

If you don’t like the name “liberal,’ you shouldn’t be talking to me. When I came on the scene and ever since, the liberals themselves have arrogated the right to decide what they and everybody and everything else is called. Marxists, Alinskyite, New Left. In the 60’s the radicals were distinguished from the liberals who followed the radicals’ lead. For obvious reasons, the radicals preferred to be called liberals. Now they call the tune for the whole orchestra. They are all liberals now but they are all radicals now. That name was hardly the first word the left has expropriated or prostituted for its own reasons. Now that the smell has become so rank, they prefer to be called progressives. What kind of arrogant ass is so conceited that he can ask we lesser others to call him progressive? I’m aware of the archaic other meaning of liberal, but today when I talk about liberals, I usually end up sticking my finger in the intended eye.
Probably I should be glad see liberals are human enough to act just like creationists or any other true believer. When they encounter dissenting ideas they never thought before, they turn personal and nasty and declare victory over and over in a loud voice.

...and you’re not a sophist, get out of here. I’ve read where blogs like this one would be infiltrated and ‘crashed’ by folks like yourself. I can’t decide though whether you are C.I.A. or just another contractor looking to make a quick buck or shall I say, a quick tax payer dollar. I think in the very near future their will be people like you knocking on our doors talkin’ that same shh but you’ll be packing heat and praising Jesus;“Liberal history ‘bad’, Jesus ‘good’”... LOL But you’ll run into people who will ask, ‘Is it true what people w/ brains are saying, is America the windiest place on the planet and if so then why are idiots like M. Bachmann and S. Palin focused exclusively on finite energy resources like oil and natural gas?’, or ‘How is it that our stupid ass plundering governor can get away w/ subjugating Labor on the one hand while at the same time has his head up between cheek even further on the issue of his not being able to speak of any safety concerns surrounding the upkeep of nuclear power plants, how the fook is this?’
What would you say to that, ‘I have my head so far up between cheek that it actually may be a record in the Republican party this year!’ Hey, you could in the mean time go to the Dead Planet playbook and demand that your City Council including school board(i.e. if one exists) remove Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary from all public spaces, as a christian woman did early last year in Menifee California. She claimed that it was harmful to young people because it listed and defined ‘fellatio’. Of course it would be realized that the attempt would not be to ban the a dictionary but to ban diction itself; Webster’s has over 150,000 terms and definitions. Lets just ban adult speak all together, that would make it even rougher for all of us, right? Getting into a fender binder w/ an adult who has the vocabulary of a 2nd grader would take on a whole new ‘meaning’—then again it would more likely end in violence which is inflationary and would collectively drive up the cost of living in a ‘civil’ society with all it’s ‘liberal history’. LOL
Hey, bad luck to you on the crap you generate from your genocidal speech dude OK, and I mean that seriously. See ya and I wouldn’t want to be ya! LOL

I should add, concerning the Menifee incident in early 2010…the woman was successful initially, the dictionary was removed but later her request was rejected. I don’t believe they cited ‘insanity’ on the part of the ‘concerned citizen’, I do think they were more easy going and simply said, “No fooking way!”